Post: #1

Since someone started a Stoic's lounge. I'd like to start an Epicurean's lounge.


What kind of pleasure did you enjoy today? How did it feel? How did it add to your life?


I'll start.

Smoked some pipe tobacco after lunch today. It allowed me to sit down, collect my thoughts, and focus on the future. I'll probably do the same again tomorrow.

Cheers!

Post: #2

If you want a short, engaging but arrogant history on how Epicureanism was transmitted to the West, look up Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #3

It's still early in the morning for me, but I'm currently sitting here and enjoying one of my favorite teas. This is one of my morning rituals, and it's a small pleasure that I look forward to every day. It allows me to take a bit of time to set my intention for the day in an enjoyable manner.

I definitely need to do some more reading on Epicureanism because I'm not nearly as familiar with it as I probably should be.

Post: #4

Good thread, though close to Stoicism. I feel closer to Epicureanism, because definitely more a spiritual bent.

Epicurus was actually more a saint and god-seeker, but since he was officially a philosopher, his followers did not change his words and create a religion after him - leaving his works unaltered.

It is good to remember to stay detached in our world of constant strife and war.

-----------

I do daily contemplations in addition to some simple things which are giving me happiness.

Post: #5

^Same reason why I was attracted to it minus it's belief in the lack of divine intervention etc.


It feels to do good and to do right. While it feels bad to do wrong by yourself or others(for people with common sensibilities).


It's always fascinating that I've always had to rationalize all of my immoral actions while no thought went into any good will. Much in the same I can't stomach most fast food as I've abstained from it for so long that it sickens me literally.

Living according to one's pleasure doesn't mean devolving into degeneracy or gluttony. It's succumbing to them completely that does. The forum more or less advocates for the former and is filled with that spirit of seeking pleasure inside and out.


My pleasure tonight was that I sat and read a novel. It helped to expand my horizons and analyze my own desires that I'm projecting by reading/enjoying a certain kind of work.

Post: #6

Screw The Swerve, which is really a light history book, and the Rude York publishing house behind it. This is Epicureanism:

Lucretius Wrote:It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale below ...

A prose translation:
https://archive.org/stream/lucretiusonth...0/mode/2up

Stoicism is, at first study, more attractive to men because it seems more masculine, and is easier to teach, but to me, it not as suitable in the long-term as Epicurus' teachings. Epicureanism has an "confirmed bachelor" feel that may not seem as suitable to younger men. But with experience, Epicureanism becomes the more honest way to dealing with life; it's nice to imagine that one is an action hero that is immune to pain, a sort of "I ain't got time to bleed" warrior, but that not realistic, even for tough guys. As one sage put it,

Sir William Temple Wrote:... many rigid Stoics, who would have had a wise man, not only without any sort of passion, but without any sense of pain as well as pleasure; and to enjoy himself in the midst of diseases and torments, as well as of health and ease: a principle, in my mind, against common nature and common sense; and which might have told us in fewer words, or with less, circumstance, that a man, to be wise, should not be a man; and this perhaps might have been easy enough believe, but nothing so hard as the other.

The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body; for while we are composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill we feel.

Someone will have to explain to those who have not studied it, that Epicurus defines pleasure distinctly like a philosopher would and not in the vulgar or broader sense. Epicurean pleasures are 'simple' as opposed to 'excess'. Excess pleasure is the immature kind that leads to long term pain; it is therefore essentially fake pleasure: e.g., any kind of addiction, whether to junk food, hooch, or 'weed', or even psychological ones such as self-pity, aggressive behavior, or deceit of others or even one's self.

ALso, Epicureanism is an embrace of the natural as opposed to supernatural; all supernatural fears and fancies are thrown into the garbage heap. There is no proof of anything supernatural and no point in letting it ruin the time we have on Earth.

To me, Roosh in 2014 represents the practice of Stoicism, the warrior mode of mature man; fighting against a corrupt system, against all odds, in arranging the national/local meetups and dealing with the fall out. This is "pleasure through virtue".

Roosh in 2016 represents the practice of Epicureanism, the 'practical' mode of mature man, as it's impossible to fight all the time. Finding a hidden but nice part of non-pozzed Europe, shacking up with a EE hottie, living simply within his means, (and I'm guessing) avoiding 'excess', stupid, or short-term pleasures. This is "virtue through pleasure".

I tried to read "The Swerve" book but found it silly and a clumsy attempt at attention. A real man's book on the subject (i.e. the first essay on Page 3)

https://archive.org/stream/sirwilliamtem...2/mode/2up

Sir William Temple Wrote:...all concluded that happiness was the chief good, and ought to be the ultimate end of man; that, as this was the end of wisdom, so wisdom was the way to happiness. The question then was, in what this happiness consisted? The contention grew warmest between the Stoics and Epicureans; the other sects, in this point, siding in a manner with one or the other .... The Stoics would have it to consist in virtue, and the Epicureans in pleasure; yet the most reasonable of the Stoics made the pleasure of virtue to be the greatest happiness, and the best of the Epicureans made the greatest pleasure to consist in virtue; and the difference between these two seems not easily discovered.

All agreed; the greatest temper, if not the total subduing of passion, and exercise of reason, to be the state of the greatest felicity; to live without desires or fears, or those perturbations of mind and thought which passions raise; to place true riches in wanting little, rather than in possessing much; and true pleasure in temperance, rather than in satisfying the senses; to live with indifference to the common enjoyments and accidents of life, and with constancy upon the greatest blows of fate or of chance; not to disturb our minds with sad reflexions upon what is past, nor with anxious cares or raving hopes about what is to come; neither to disquiet life with the fears of death, nor death with the desires of life; but in both, and in all things else, to follow nature, seem to be the precepts most agreed among them.

The best other book is "Epicurus's Morals: Collected and Faithfully Englished" by Walter Charleton, however I cannot find it online so it must be purchased by hard copy.

Unsolicited advice: Read only books without dust jackets or pictures on the cover.

Post: #7

Some great suggestions here. Epicureanism has gotten a "bad rap" beginning from ancient times and continuing all through the medieval and early modern periods. Perhaps this philosophy would enjoy more repute if Epicurus's own works had survived. Even Lucretius, his most lucid exponent, was something of a pariah in ancient Rome. Epicureanism was not really in accord with the Roman character. Cicero despised Epicureanism, as did some influential others like the Platonists and Neoplatonists, but much of this was based on misunderstanding and cherry-picking of ideas out of context.

Epicureanism was actually quite reasonable, all in all. As I see it, its problems come from the fact that its ideas easily lent themselves to abuse by those who used it as an excuse to become libertine pleasure-seekers. This is never what Epicurus advocated. As one historian said it: "Epicurus was no epicurean." In some ways he was an ascetic who advocated for moderation in the best of the old Greek traditions. But while I respect Epicureanism and think it makes some good points, I don't find it congenial to my own personality.

I also don't think it tends to bring out the best of human nature. Lucretius was a materialist, in the original sense of the word. Few people will find it comforting to be told that life is a meaningless movement of atoms through the void, the object of which is to maximize our own pleasure, and that this journey ends in the oblivion of death. It is a depressing philosophy, and its gloominess may have been one of the reasons Lucretius liked it. (He himself committed suicide, according to tradition).

I also want to say a word about translations. It is important for a reader to find a translation that makes the work intelligible and understandable to him. The problem with the older translations is that, while they may have been fine in their era, they are hopelessly out of date. I personally find it off-putting to see a mass of semicolons, "thees" and "thous," and other archaisms scattered across a page of text. Most of the older translations are simply unreadable. Even worse, they have insufficient footnotes and other supplementary materials that can help the beginning or intermediate student.

So, this is a real problem. I read "The Swerve" several years ago and found it to be a nice introduction to the subject matter. While I don't agree with some of the author's conclusions about the alleged importance of "De Rerum Natura" in the Western tradition, the book at least had the merit of helping expose new readers to classical subjects. For this alone, it deserves some praise. The book had some interesting anecdota about Poggio Bracciolini, the preparation of manuscript books, and some other subjects. Anything that gets people to look at the original classics is fine by me. We have to recognize the needs and requirements of the layman reader.

In any case, my point is that we should experiment with different translations of our favorite classics until we find one that speaks to us best.

.

Post: #8

^Excellent take, I enjoy reading more about this.

As for the Swerve—stupid 'gotta buy me' title, by the way, for a book supposed to be about poetry and philosophy—its main point that "De Rerum-changed-the-world!!" is bogus and made me drop it. It is really a history book, and its history is absurd.

Epicureanism is easy to superficially dismiss; even today it raises silly images of expensive white-tablecloth French restaurants with potbellied men eating buttered snails as they talk over which vintage Chablis goes best with it.

The materialism of Epicurus to me is part and parcel of the philosophy; religion, in contrast to Epicureanism, is based not on tranquility of mind but on 'faith' or 'sacrifice' (to a church or abstract idea of 'God'). To me, they are either scams or fictional, or so distant or morally set up as to not require my suffering.

I find that the world is just material and there is no evidence or sense anything else, whether call it supernatural or spiritual. Religion and the whole you-will-play-harps-with-Jeebus-in-heaven-forever I dismiss as wishful thinking. We are nothing but animals; maybe regretful, but true. The book by Walter Charleton does offer some convincing apologia for Epicureanism and Christianity

Sir William Temple on why Epicureanism seems to be so hated:

Quote:I have often wondered how such sharp and violent invectives came to be made go generally against Epicurus by the ages that followed him, whose admirable wit, felicity of expression, excellence of nature, sweetness of conversation, temperance of life, and constancy of death, made him so beloved by his friends, admired by his scholars, and honoured by the Athenians. But this injustice may be fastened chiefly upon the envy and malignity of the Stoics at first, then upon the mistakes of some gross pretenders to his sect (who took pleasure only to be sensual) and afterwards, upon the piety of the primitive Christians, who esteemed his principles of natural philosophy more opposite to those of our religion, than either the Platonists, the Peripatetics; or Stoics themselves: yet, I confess, I do not know why the account given by Lucretius of the Gods, should be thought more impious than that given by Homer, who makes them not only subject to all the weakest passions, but perpetually busy in all the worst or meanest actions men.

But not entirely

Quote:But Epicurus has found so great advocates of his virtue, as well as learning and inventions, that there need no more; and the testimonies of Diogenes Laertius alone seem too sincere and impartial to be disputed, or to want the assistance of modern authors: if all failed, he would be but too well defended by the excellence of so many of his sect in all ages, and especially of those who lived in the compass of one, but the greatest in story, both as to persons and events: I need name no more than Cæsar, Atticus, Mæcenas, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace all admirable in their several kinds, and perhaps unparalleled in story.

Post: #9

My classic's professor painted a much more sympathetic picture of Epicurus than many other people did. We don't have any of his actual texts left if I recall correctly. Much of what we know about this guy is second hand, so that adds a layer to it.

From what has been written about him and the little that I read, it didn't sound like he was this totally freewheeling pleasure seeker. He actually sounded sort of stoic in some sense. Like, he would indulge in pleasures if they were around, but he would also restrain himself at various points so that if he and his followers found themselves in dire straits and couldn't get the finer things in life they could do just fine without it.

Interesting thread idea.

Post: #10

Yes, without a doubt, Epicurus is very much misunderstood. We just don't have the original texts to the same extent that we have for the Stoics and the Platonists. A comparatively large corpus of Stoic works have survived: Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero (an eclectic and Stoic sympathizer!), etc. Think of how many Neoplatonist works survived: Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, etc.

But we have very little in the way of Epicurean works. Almost no original texts, only fragments. Why? Even in Roman times, Epicureanism was sort of the "red-headed stepchild" of the philosophical schools. The Roman tradition is strangely silent about Lucretius. No one knew quite what to do with him. The other main reason is the Church.

Stoicism and Platonism were "in accord" with Church doctrine, in the sense that they could be "fitted" within the Church's theological framework. Copyists were encouraged to make copies of their works. And in the days before printing, no copies meant literary death. Epicurean works were permitted to die from neglect. The Church accepted nearly every line of Plotinus, since his mystical hypostases could be reconciled with Christian theology. In the same way, Stoicism was so useful, and so strong, that it simply could not be discarded.

But Epicureanism, frankly, is only for the most disciplined and open-minded of men. It takes a high degree of maturity to understand it, and not abuse its findings. It is not a doctrine for the masses.

@Scrambled: I share your views, but I have a more kindly view towards the author. I agree with you that "The Swerve" is not what I would call an academically rigorous book. Greenblatt's claims that "De Rerum Natura changed the world" are hyperbolic in the extreme. But look at it this way, man: at least he's trying to introduce an audience to something that they haven't seen before. I also see his book as more of a personal memoir than anything else. He talks about how he found comfort and solace from the death of his mother by reading Lucretius. And you know what? That's fine. In this hard world, a man has to latch on to what provides him sustenance. Try to see it from his perspective, brother.

If that helped him, then maybe his book is his own personal testament to his debt to Lucretius. So I'm willing to cut the guy a bit of slack. Who knows? Maybe his book will encourage some guy or girl to probe into Lucretius and discover a new world. And if that happens, then he will have done his job.

Post: #11

Quintus, which book would you recommend as a good introductory text to Epicurianism?

Post: #12

(03-17-2017 11:03 AM)rafaeld Wrote:  Quintus, which book would you recommend as a good introductory text to Epicurianism?

Rafa:

I think the best option is to go to the original texts themselves. And the most complete Epicurean text that has come down to us from antiquity is Lucretius. Go right to the source! My copy is from the Loeb Library series, and I like it. The introduction has a good summary of the ideas in the book. You might be able to get a used copy for a discounted price.

Unfortunately I don't know any other translations besides this one. I'm sure Penguin has an edition, but I have never seen it and can't really say anything about it.

Post: #13

I look forward to reading both The Swerve and Lucretius. QC - both of the books you mention are on Amazon.

Lately I have been thinking about Ryan Holiday. The marketing tactics he concocted for American Apparel ultimately contributed to its specular and pointless downfall. He even wrote a book about it. To watch his ascent and downfall, makes me doubt him overall. He's a big proponent of Stoicism. So do I doubt the man now?

Someone asked me last night what my bucket list is, and I really didnt have a good answer. I have done a lot. But I relish in the small things now, much more so.

Post: #14

Thomas Jefferson was quite fond of Epicurus. So, he was definitely an influence on America's heroes.

I slept late and heard Tim Ferriss speak. He was pretty good.

Post: #15

Initiation into Epiucureanism: No purchase necessary

http://www.epicurus.net/en/principal.html

"Better than Jesus"